bird monitoring

Tiritiri Matangi Island is a Scientific Reserve located in the Hauraki Gulf, New Zealand. In 1986, two years after the start of a ten-year planting programme on the island, members of the Ornithological Society of New Zealand, Auckland, began a monitoring programme of the bird populations. A biannual survey scheme commenced in April 1987, counting birds on predetermined transects and at listening posts. This paper focuses on the spring dataset (November) to provide an overview of changes in relative abundance of birds from 1987 to 2010.

Many reports exist of Australian magpies (Gymnorhina tibicen) attacking and sometimes killing other birds. One study concluded that magpies had little impact on the abundance of other birds at landscape scales, but another found that birds (mainly exotic species) avoided flying or landing close to them. We assessed whether continuously removing magpies for 6 weeks from localised areas of high resource availability (e.g.